Author: Daren Matsuoka, a16z crypto
Translated by: Tim, PANews
The crypto industry is moving towards maturity. At the end of last year, we proposed 5 metrics to closely track by 2025 to monitor the industry's growth and development.
Here are the mid-year data status, driving factors, and their importance.
- Monthly mobile wallet users: 23% growth
- Adjusted stablecoin trading volume: +49%
- ETP net capital inflow (Bitcoin and Ethereum): +28%
- Spot trading volume from decentralized exchanges to centralized exchanges: +51%
- Total transaction fees (block space demand): -43%
- Number of tokens with monthly net profit exceeding $1 million: 22
1. Monthly mobile wallet users: 23% growth
2025 average: 34.4 million monthly active mobile wallet users
2024 average: 27.9 million monthly active mobile wallet users
Why is this metric important?
Wallet infrastructure has significantly improved, with low transaction fees, new account abstraction protocols (EIP-7702), and embedded wallet products (Privy, Turnkey, Dynamic) emerging. Now is the best time to build the next generation of mobile wallets.
Related news:
- Stripe recently acquired Privy, a leading wallet infrastructure provider.
Source: a16z crypto (as of May 2025)
2. Adjusted stablecoin trading volume: +49%
2025 average monthly adjusted stablecoin trading volume: $70.2 billion
2024 average monthly adjusted stablecoin trading volume: $47.2 billion
Why is this metric important?
Stablecoins have achieved product-market fit. Now we can transfer US dollar value at a cost of less than one cent and in less than a second, making stablecoins an excellent payment product that large financial institutions are eagerly embracing.
Related news:
- Circle, the issuer of USDC, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange
- Payment giant Stripe acquired the stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge and announced the launch of several new products
- Coinbase released a proxy payment standard supporting stablecoin payments
- Visa and Mastercard strengthen support for stablecoins
- Reports suggest Meta is in talks about introducing stablecoins as a payment method
Source: Visa (as of June 2025)
3. ETP net capital inflow (Bitcoin and Ethereum): +28%
June 2025: Total ETP net inflow of $45 billion (BTC inflow of $42 billion, ETH inflow of $3.4 billion)
End of 2024: Total ETP net inflow of $35 billion (BTC inflow of $33 billion, ETH inflow of $2.4 billion)
Why is this metric important?
Institutional capital is entering the crypto space, marking the industry's overall maturity. With increasingly clear regulatory frameworks and core issuers launching related businesses, net capital inflow into Exchange Traded Products (ETP) is expected to continue growing.
Related news:
- The US SEC recently requested that spot Solana ETF issuers update their S-1 filing, indicating that such ETFs may soon be approved.
Source: Dune @hildobby (as of June 2025)
4. Spot trading volume from decentralized exchanges to centralized exchanges: +51%
2025 average monthly DEX to CEX trading volume ratio: 17%
2024 average monthly DEX to CEX trading volume ratio: 11%
Why is this metric important?
As more people enter the crypto world, the proportion of decentralized exchange usage in the crypto market is expected to gradually exceed that of centralized exchanges. This growth trend demonstrates the overall development of the DeFi ecosystem.
Related news:
- Coinbase just announced native support for users to complete decentralized exchange trades directly in the app, which will open up trading pairs for thousands of new assets.
Source: The Block (as of June 2025)
5. Total transaction fees (block space demand): -43%
2025 average: Monthly transaction fees of $239 million
2024 average: Monthly transaction fees of $439 million
Why is this metric important?
The total transaction fees in US dollars reflect the total demand for block space on a specific blockchain, which represents the actual economic value.
However, this metric involves many complex factors, as most projects are clearly committed to reducing user fees. For this reason, it is particularly important to consider the unit transaction cost, which refers to the cost of consuming a specified amount of blockchain resources. The ideal state is: total transaction fees (total transaction cost) continue to grow, while gas fees (unit resource consumption cost) remain at a low level.
Related news:
- Recently, discussions about the importance of this metric (and related metrics like REV) have sparked on the X platform.
Source: Dune (as of June 2025)
There is an additional metric worth noting: the number of tokens with monthly net profit exceeding $1 million. As of June 2025, there are only 22 such tokens (source: Token Terminal).
With the implementation of new regulatory environments and upcoming market structure legislation, the path for tokens to complete their economic cycle is finally becoming clear. This will encourage more projects to directly return value to tokens in the form of revenue, thereby building a healthier token economy.
